LIVING WHERE THEY PLAY, ARMY-NAVY KIDS BOND LIKE BROTHERS

Nearly all students call Carlsbad school home

You don’t get the solace of your bedroom, you don’t get a break from your teammates, and your coach may very well follow you to your dorm.

That’s just life at a military high school. In places like the Army-Navy Academy in Carlsbad, you are surrounded by those you share the field or court with all day, every day, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

And the students wouldn’t want it any other way.

“Win or lose, you got a group of guys that you’re closer to than your own brothers,” said Sayeed Hasnat, a financial adviser at Morgan Stanley who played basketball at Army-Navy in the 1980s. “Even if we did lose, you have a group of guys who always have your back and will build you back up.”

Army-Navy is a boarding school where about 90 percent of the students live on campus. They wake up at 6:15 a.m., have formation at 6:30, and live under strict military discipline both in and away from class. For a couple hours between school and lights out (10 p.m.), they are able to enjoy their distinctive athletic experience — often a welcome break from the regular military routine.

You won’t find the stands packed to the brim like at Helix or Cathedral Catholic. Teams don’t have the community support that you’d see at the more traditional schools, but in no way does that take away from the sense of community.

Sports, as we know, can often bring emotions to a boil. Sometimes that means euphoria, and sometimes it means extreme frustration. But whereas that anger or disappointment often is stashed away or left to fester while one watches TV and scarfs some Doritos, at Army-Navy it’s dealt with head-on.

“It’s not like practice is over and you go home and you’re unhappy and pouting. We don’t get that much,” said John Maffucci, a former Army-Navy Academy athletic director who coached at the school for more than 50 years. “Afterward, sometimes you’ll be with a kid and you say, ‘We gotta talk about this, we gotta get into your head a little bit.’ ”

That’s when it comes to the tough times, though. With Army-Navy athletics, there have been plenty of good times, too.

The school won two San Diego Section Division I football titles in the 1970s and claimed three section basketball titles in the 1980s. Hasnat says he still keeps in touch with his teammates from the glory days, and that the discipline instilled in him while at the school impacts his life to this day.

Maffucci’s son Chris, now a basketball coach at Corona High, said his time at Army-Navy has influenced him to treat his team more like a family — organizing dinners, activities, even out-of-state trips.

Current Army-Navy Athletic Director Tom Tarantino would say that’s the way to do it.

“I sense that this has been real healthy and life-changing,” Tarantino said of the kids’ time at the academy. “It’s a brotherhood. They’re kind of all in it together.”